2013 is proving to be a hectic year for corporate lobbyists and free trade advocates, as they frantically flit, like busy bees pollinating succulent orchids, from one global free trade conference to another. And at long last, it seems that their hard work appears to be paying off.

In the last month alone world leaders from 12 countries, including the U.S., Australia, Japan, New Zealand and Mexico, pledged to sign the Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP) by the end of the year. On the other side of the globe, meanwhile, Europe has signed a sweeping free trade agreement with Canada. And what’s more, despite all the furore over allegations of NSA and GCHQ spying on European national leaders, most EU member states are determined to ensure that the fallout from the scandal does not derail ongoing talks for a Transatlantic Trade and Investment Partnership (TTIP), a treaty that would effectively knit together countries with nearly half the world’s GDP into a massive free-trade zone.

Via Naked Capitalism, By Don Quijones, November 3
Indeed, the president of the European Parliament, Martin Schulz, has already suggested that it may be necessary to temporarily suspend negotiations — not out of concern for joining in partnership with a nation whose recent actions have betrayed every possible notion of mutual trust, but rather out of fear that continued negotiations in the current climate could feed anti-free trade sentiment:

“If such events continue, and more news comes out, I fear that those who are against the free trade agreement in principle will become the majority,” said Schulz during last week’s EU summit. “My advice is to stop for a moment and discuss how we can avoid such a development.”

[…]

Just as with the signing of NAFTA and the creation of the Global Agreement on Trade and Tariffs, to later become the World Trade Organisation (WTO), there will be no public consultation whatsoever on the potential ramifications of the treaties.

And for good reason. For just as the late Sir James Goldsmith warned about GATT, NAFTA and the merging of sovereign European nations into the EU in this eerily prophetic interview with Charlie Rose in 1994, their enforcement will lead to the destruction of millions of middle class jobs and the obliteration of traditional agriculture (as happened in Mexico) and local businesses. And who in their right mind — apart from, of course, our corporate masters and their political servants — would ever vote for that?

The Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP) is a trade deal that is being negotiated completely in secret. The main actors at the table are large corporate interests like Wall Street banks, multinational drug companies, and oil and gas companies. This might lead one to think that the end product will be an agreement that furthers the upward redistribution of income rather than benefits the bulk of the population. That seems especially likely since this is a “next generation” trade agreement that is primarily about regulations, not reducing traditional trade barriers like tariffs and quotas.

The result is likely to be a deal where corporations will use the trade agreement to block restrictions on their behavior that might otherwise be imposed by democratically elected governments. For example, the financial industry might use the deal to prohibit Dodd-Frank type restrictions that prevent the sort of abuses that led to the financial crisis. The oil and gas industries might use the deal to prohibit environmental restrictions on fracking. And the pharmaceutical industry might push for stronger patent-type protections. These will raise the price of drugs (like a tax) and slow economic growth.

“A good agreement would lower duties and trade barriers on most products and services, strengthen labor and environmental protections, limit the ability of governments to tilt the playing field in favor of state-owned firms and balance the interests of consumers and creators of intellectual property. Such a deal will not only help individual countries but set an example for global trade talks.”

Yes, boys and girls, Goldman Sachs, Exxon-Mobil and Pfizer will put together a deal that does all these things. This is serious?